The Best and Worst Drafts in Trail Blazers History

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Thursday, June 25, 2015

Hank Stern, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Whilst we wait on what looks to be an uneventful Portland Trail Blazers draft tonight and perhaps ponder the final days of LaMarcus Aldridge in a Portland uniform, let's spend a moment to review the best and worst drafts in the franchise’s 45-year history.

For this exercise, the criteria to evaluate what defines “best” and “worst” will be the entirety of that year’s draft, not just one ignominious selection.

Sorry, fans who automatically slot the 1984 draft in the “historically awful” category because the Blazers whiffed on Michael Jordan and took injury-prone Sam Bowie instead, Why? In that same draft -- proving that there are gems to be mined in the second round -- Portland used the 46th overall selection to choose mainstay Jerome Kersey who played in two Finals for Portland and ended up in the franchise's top-five lists for games, points, rebounds and steals.

And with apologies for being counter-intuitive, the “worst” list also does not include the 1972 draft when Portland somehow misused the top pick overall on the underwhelming LaRue Martin. In that same draft, the Trail Blazers also chose two players who ended up as significant contributors on the 1977 championship team -- Lloyd Neal and Dave Twardzik (though Twardzik first played in the American Basketball Association for four years).

So without further ado and using our best 20-20 hindsight, here are the three best and worst Trail Blazers drafts.

WORST

#3

1973: Close call here. In 1987 draft, Portland wasted the 17th pick overall on Ronnie Murphy, who played all of 18 games before washing out. In the 1973 draft, Portland used the #15 pick overall to select Barry Parkhill, who played three nondescript ABA seasons and never suited up for Portland.  A slightly higher pick who never played for the Blazers? That’s worthy by a nose of qualifying as the team’s third-worst draft.

#2

2004: How, you may ask, can you rank this one of the worst drafts when the Trail Blazers ended up with four guys who played for them? Easy when their names are Sebastian Telfair, Sergei Monia, Viktor Khryapa and Ha Seung-jin.

Portland chose Telfair, a highly touted high school player who was the subject of a book while still a teen-ager, before Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, JR Smith, Dorrell Wright, Jameer Nelson, Beno Udrih, Kevin Martin, Anderson Varejao and Trevor Ariza – all of whom have played in the league for more than a decade. Telfair turned out to be tremendously overrated. Neither Monia and Khyrapa played much on horrific Portland teams. And Seung-jin took the phrase “lumbering center” to new depths (painful video evidence if you need it). 

#1 

2007: OK, we're not completely counter-intuitive. Two words: “Greg Oden.” Enough said.

BEST

#3

1970: Lots of competition here. Hard not to go with 1974 when Portland made up for its LaRue Martin pick two years earlier by using the top selection to choose Bill Walton, who after two underwhelming injury-filled seasons was the centerpiece in 1977 for the Trail Blazers’ only title. Or the 2012 draft when Portland chose Damian Lillard, Meyers Leonard and Will Barton--this one could qualify eventually if Lillard continues on his trajectory and Leonard maintains his surprising progress from last season.

But we’ll go with 1970 when the Trail Blazers did incredibly well with the first selection in team history, choosing Geoff Petrie with the eighth overall pick.

All Petrie did over the next six years was share the Rookie of the Year award, make two All-Star teams and serve as the face of the franchise in its early existence. He also won the NBA’s one-on-one contest in 1973 when Trail Blazers fans had little else to cheer about.

#2

1975: In Lionel Hollins and Bobby Gross, Portland chose two players who started on the championship team and played a combined 12 seasons for the Trail Blazers. Also worth noting as one ray of hope for tonight’s draft is that Portland picked Gross with the 25th overall selection, two picks lower than Portland’s first-round slot tonight. Hollins and Gross also had their numbers retired by the Trail Blazers, though that’s another story altogether.

#1

2006: Through some fantastic draft-night machinations, Portland ended up with LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy. Roy's career ended all too early but he deserves everlasting credit for restoring Portland's love of the Trail Blazers after a dark, dark era. And Aldridge of course has made four All-Star teams and earned second-team all-NBA honors this past season, all while climbing the franchise’s statistical lists. 

Speaking of Aldridge, since this week’s column has looked back, let’s look forward and predict what Aldridge will do next month on the free-agent market. Look for him to sign a one -year deal with Portland in hopes of striking it even more rich after next season as a free agent in a market with a much higher salary cap.

A native Oregonian, Hank Stern had a 24-year career in journalism, working for more than a decade as a reporter with The Associated Press in Oregon, New Jersey and Washington, DC. He worked seven years for The Oregonian as a reporter in east Multnomah County, Washington County and Portland’s City Hall. In 2005, he became Willamette Week’s managing news editor and worked there until 2011.

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